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Sunday, 13 July 2014

Spanish Civil War enagement

On Thursday evening James and I arranged another game of Spanish Civil War using the Chain of Command Spanish Civil War lists from Rolf and Jim.

We set up the table as per the aerial photograph shown and then randomised the mission and would be playing Scenario 4: A Delaying Action with my Falange as the defenders.

The bottom left Jump-off should be red.

This time John and Greg joined in, John joining me with the Falangists and Greg helping James with the Steel Legion Communists. As there is a 2pt disparity in Force Support between the Falange and Steel Legion list I spend the 2pts on 'Blueshirts' and rolled par dice - unfortunately, it is not described what happens when you roll a net zero so I rolled again and got +1. Rolling a 3 I would be on Force Morale 9, James rolled a 6 and was on Force Morale 11.

We played out the Patrol Phase and ended up with the Jump-Off points as shown (actually the bottom left one should be red - whoops!

Rolling for Force Support, James rolled 7pts so I would have three points, we pick our supports in secret. I opted for another Falange Rifle Section with Junior Leader, James picked Grenades for one of his Teams, an LMG for one of his teams and a T-26 tank - bugger. I don't have any extra Falange painted so I used a section of Guardia Civil to make up the numbers.

Falange strongpoint

James took the first phase, and as can be expected, the T-26 started rolling forwards, he actually had about three phases of just the T-26 on the table, so Greg and I elected to not deploy any troops until he deployed some infantry, it would be pointless to waste our chaps until he had committed some troops that we could at least affect.

Soon the Republican infantry were deployed from their central Jump-off Point so we deployed one section of Falange in the building and another in the walled enclosure, putting these on Overwatch. The Republicans ran to line the hedgerow so we opened fire, one Republican was killed - the Sub-Jefe who had been directing the Republicans on.

That dammed T-26

The Republican LMG we deployed and soon was pouring fire into the troops in the building and over a couple of phases had accounted for four Falangists, the T-26 continued its advance pouring fire into those troops too, The Republican infantry dropped back though, unwilling to line the hedges due to fear of the fire from the walled enclosure.

With so few targets, the Falange were reduced to spending many phases doing very little apart from a couple of shots from the window of the building back at the LMG team that was firing on them.

Republican forces move up

We now had a one in a million event (actually a 1 in 1296 event), Greg rolled his four Command Dice and threw four sixes, the turn ended and all my lovely Overwatch markers were removed, the Republicans held the next phase and also gained a Chain of Command dice. Rolling for the random event, fighters made a low pass over the battlefield so nobody could use any activations to move over the next couple of phases.

This was quite fortunate as it allowed me to get my Overwatch markers back on the defenders in preparation for the Republican infantry pushing up. Soon after though, James pushed the Republican infantry back up to the hedge line and things took a turn for the worse, my Overwatch fire was desultry while the return fire was devastating in it's effect of wounding both my Sub-Jefe and the Jefe de Falange sheltering behind the wall, this cost me three points of Force Morale and another one in two very next phase when the Sub-Jefe was hit again. The T-26 mopped up another team of Falangista and I had to use a Chain of Command dice to move the objective into a wood where I then deployed my final section of Guardia Civil to defend it.

The hedge line is not a good place to be for the Sub-Jefe

The Falangists were now reduced to three dice and really had nothing to stop that bloody T-26. However, time was on our side and we only had time for a couple more phases. James ploughed the T-26 into the woods, but as we still had two Chain of Command dice left was never going to be able to secure the Objective.

At the end of the evening the Falange had been reduced to Force Morale 3, in the main due to wounds on leaders as we had only lost a single team, while the Communists were still on Force Morale 10, the killed Sub-Jefe only costing them a point.

How the game panned out

We were really up against it from the start as we had nothing to counter the T-26 with, we have made a gentleman's agreement now that if one of us picks armour for Force Support then we need to let the opponent know so that they can make a change to their Force Support if they wish.

John and Greg enjoyed the game and I will be hosting another game of Spanish Civil War for them next Thursday, hopefully Steve and Dave can also make that.